This invention relates to a railway car of the gondola type commonly used to carry bulk materials, such as coal, sand, gravel, ore and the like. It relates particularly to a railway gondola car which is loaded through its open top and unloaded in a rotary car dumper by inverting the entire car.
Most gondola cars built in the past have been built in the shape of a rectangular box having a flat bottom and vertical side walls supported by the center sill and side girders respectively. Such gondola cars were somewhat restricted in their carrying capacity and had a high center of gravity. In recent years, railway car builders have attempted to increase the capacity of the gondola car and lower its center of gravity by providing a depressed center. One such car is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,713,400 to Teoli. While such cars were improvements on conventional gondola cars, they frequently required special materials and components including brake rigging, special jigs and fabrication techniques which added to their manufacturing and maintenance costs.